Our Song Read Free Page B

to read.”
    The boy’s face went slack and his eyes went dreamy—half-incredulous, half-longing. You’d have thought Nanny told him I’d been raised on a diet of candy and rainbows or I was the reincarnation of June Carter Cash.
    Rather than disappoint this guy with the truth, I decided to squirm my way out of the conversation entirely.
    â€œSpeaking of reading,” I said, way too brightly, “I just remembered I left my e-reader in the van. I need to go get it before it fries in this heat. My camera’s in there too. Annabelle was just going to help me, right?”
    â€œWell,” she said, “actually, I’ve kind of run out of time. I want to do a smudging ceremony in our room before lunch.”
    â€œA what ?” I asked her.
    â€œSee, it’s all about good energy . . . ,” Annabelle began. She launched into a convoluted history of “cleansing” a room with a tuft of burning sage. Again, I only understood snatches of what she was saying:
    â€œ. . . sacred Native American ritual . . . the perfect meeting of earth, wind, and fire . . . and let’s not forget about the importance of feng shui . . .”
    As much as I liked Annabelle, I could tell we were going to have a lot of late-night conversations about the meaning of life and other “deep” things I knew nothing about.
    I was also pretty sure our room was going to stink after she’d filled it with sage smoke.
    When Annabelle finally paused to take a breath, Nanny nodded politely and said, “That’s . . . fascinating, dear.”
    And the boy?
    Snort.
    Now he was trying not to laugh. He passed his hand over his mouth as if to wipe his giggle away. But his full lips still twitched and his eyes looked squinty and sparkly behind his glasses. They were also directed, not at Annabelle, but at me! I had a feeling he knew exactly how squirmy I felt listening to Annabelle’s unintelligible feng shui talk.
    â€œWhat’s your name, anyway?” I asked him. It sounded moreblunt than I’d intended, but it did a good job of distracting him from silently mocking me.
    â€œOh, right,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m Jacob. Jacob MacEvoy.”
    â€œWell, it’s so nice to meet you,” Nanny said, reaching up and patting his shoulder. He was only a few inches taller than me, but he positively towered over my tiny grandmother.
    Then Nanny gave me a quick kiss on the cheek before hustling off to the lodge. The kiss felt an awful lot like a good-bye, even though we’d just arrived here.
    â€œSure you don’t want to join me for the smudging?” Annabelle asked me as she, too, turned to leave.
    â€œUm, I’d better get my stuff out of the van,” I said, trying to look as if I’d pondered the opportunity for more than half a second.
    And then it was just me and the boy—Jacob.
    â€œOkay, well,” I said awkwardly, “see you around.”
    â€œIf not in fiddle class,” he replied. Was that a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth?
    â€œUh, right. Not there.”
    I felt like there was more I should say—but I had no idea what. So I just gave him a limp wave that made me feel more raisinish than ever. Then I headed back to the parking lot.
    That was the moment when I should have felt elated, like a bird out of its cage. I’d been freed from endless hours in Nanny’s classroom.
    Although, when I thought about it, Nanny’s classroom was actually pretty cozy. It was a little cabin on the fringe of Camden’s campus. The vaulted ceiling was paneled with knotty pine planks, and there were faded, flowery curtains in every window. They fluttered in the breeze of the many ceiling fans, which made it seem like they were dancing to the students’ music.
    Ah, the students, I thought. That’s the best part of this deal. All those terrible renditions of